Even if trumpeter Adam O’Farrill hadn’t made such a big splash as a twenty-year-old phenom in Rudresh Mahanthappa’s band, or if he wasn’t heir to a brilliant jazz legacy that goes back three generations to his grandfather Chico O’Farrill, he’d still be one of his era’s most in-demand players. When pianist Chris Pattishall got a gig to livescore the debut of visual artist Kambui’s new video project, Where Does the Time Go this coming Weds, Nov 15 at 7:30 at the Lincoln Center atrium space on Broadway just north of 62nd Street, he immediately brought in O’Farrill as a sparring partner. Which testifies to his reputation as an improviser as well as a sideman. Pattishall is no slouch as an improviser, either: this performance could school a lot of players.

O’Farrill is also a composer, with several tracks to his credit on his debut album Stranger Days, streaming at Sunnyside Records. It’s a lot of fun, and the lineup is somewhat unorthodox for a debut – two horns, bass and drums. Not to be disrespectful to young composers, but there are plenty of guys twice O’Farrill’s age who can’t write tunes as purposeful as the numbers here. Being a bigtime movie fan probably has a lot to do with the vividness of his sonic narratives.

The album title is a pun, and it’s apt, referencing both the Camus novel as well as our surreal times. The album opens with the optimistically waltzing harmonies of A & R Italian Eatery, O’Farriull and tenor saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown bantering like a couple of garrulous oldtimers in the neighborhood pizza joint. O’Farrill’s similarly brliliant brother Zack adds sparkle and spatter against Walter Stinson’s sinuous bass.

A fluttery solo trumpet approximation of waves licking the beach opens the epic The Stranger, then the bandleader takes an allusively North African tangent as a shout to the novel’s enigmatic protagonist. From there the band shuffle, then march with a Mingus-inspired grit, the brothers in the band messing with the time and pushing their instruments’ outer edges: the fun these guys are having is contagious. Long, exploratory, unresolved solos from each horn player give way to moody minimalism from the bass and drums before the procession resumes. Does anybody get shot? No spoilers here.

Stinson’s terse solo base interchange with moody horn harmonies peppered by latin-tinged rimshots in Survival Instincts. Why She Loves, by Stinson, begins with low-key, amiable solo sax; slinky syncopation and tense close harmonies follow until the brothers in the band bust through the clouds, clearing a path for the bass to bop around.

Aligator Got the Blues rises from moody, blues-infused atmospherics to a latin slink and then a strut as the sax bobs and weaves; they take it out with argumentative New Orleans horns and wind it back somberly. Another Stinson tune, Forget Everything You’ve Learned At School follows a byzantine if ultimately triumphant path out of frustration with routine and repetition: no wonder everybody can’t wait til the school day is over!

The album’s most ambitious point is a triptych that begins with The Cows and Their Farmer Walt, inspired by the famous 1935 Mickey Mouse cartoon The Band Concert, with the satirical, buffoonish feel of a Mostly Other People Do the Killing parody piece: everybody chews the scenery, with irresistibly amusing results. The Courtroom keeps this silly, conversational narrative going “as a judge (bass), a politician (sax), and an environmental scientist (trumpet) try to come to terms with what happened after this natural disaster, not to mention what happened to the cows and their farmer.” It concludes with the funky math of Building the Metamorphosen Bridge

The album closes with Lower Brooklyn Botanical Union, a jaunty swing shuffle and joint shout-out to Strayhorn and the brothers’ pioneering latin jazz composer grandfather. It’s impressively eclectic stuff from a guy whose ceiling seems to be pretty unlimited – and a good indication of what he might pull out of thin air at the Lincoln Center gig on Wednesday.

True to their name, the Hot Jazz Jumpers‘s sound springboards off of oldtimey 20s and 30s swing. And in the spirit of those mostly unsung, regional combos who ripped up dancefloors back in the day, the Hot Jazz Jumpers mash up styles from all over the map. The seventeen tracks on their new album The Very Next Thing and live concert dvd comprise swing, delta blues, southern rock, C&W, Carolina Coast folk music, free improvisation and more. So their sound is totally retro – yet completely in the here and now, another case where the old is new again. they’re playing the album release show on Friday, November 6 at 11 PM in the cozy confines at Pete’s, which should be party in a box – literally. As a bonus, guitarist/bandleader Nick Russo does double duty, opening the night at 10 with a set with his ambitious large-ensemble jazz project Nick Russo +11, who’re celebrating their ninth year in business.

The new album opens with a scampering take of Back Home Again in Indiana, sung by banjoist/guitarist/dancer Betina Hershey. Lots of period-perfect, quirky touches here, from the twin banjos, to Walter Stinson’s sotto vocce bass solo, even a dinner bell. They follow that with Freight Train, a dobro-driven oldtime C&W tune, Hershey’s honeyed vocals evoking Laura Cantrell. The take of Caravan here is a long, loose, otherworldly-tinged shuffle with vocalist Miles Griffith’s rustic, impassioned gullah-inspired vocals, Russo’s spiraling solo echoing Gordon Au’s jaunty trumpet lines.

Griffith’s gruffly animated scatting contrasts with Hershey’s summery warmth on You Are My Sunshine, reinvented as a sprawling soukous jam. Nobody But My Baby Is Getting My Love gets an oldtimey banjo swing treatment livened with Josh Holcomb’s wry, amiable trombone. Russo and Griffith do both In a Mellow Tone and Manha de Carnaval as a duo, the ancient paired against the brand-new.

Driven by Russo’s slide guitar, Jock-a-Mo looks back to the Grateful Dead, if with considerably more focus. Dirty 40 slowly builds from stark delta blues to a Stonesy ba-bump Beggars Banquet groove. Fueled by the banjos and Hershey’s sassy delivery, Sweet Georgia Brown mashes up 40s swing, bucolic string band ambience and an Aiko Aiko Crescent City bounce. They keep the Aiko Aiko thing going through the spirited Jam for Lenny.

Hershey’s nuanced sense of angst breathes new life into a slowly swinging, bristling, banjo-propelled take of Ain’t Misbehavin. By contrast, they do Got My Mojo Working as a loose Mississippi juke joint jam, Russo’s slide guitar front and center. The upbeat dance vibe continues through the oldtimey swing of When the Red Red Robin Goes Bob-Bob-Bobbin’ Along, then the band mashes up gospel, gullah folk and bluegrass in This Little Light of Mine. There’s also a second take of Jock-a-Mo and a lively jam on the way out. The album hasn’t officially hit the street just yet, but copies are available at shows and the opening track is up at soundcloud.

About

Welcome to Lucid Culture, a New York-based music blog active since 2007. You can scroll down for a brief history and explanation of what we do here. To help you get around this site, here are some links which will take you quickly to our most popular features:

If you’re wondering where all the rock music coverage here went, it’s moved to our sister blog New York Music Daily.

April, 2007 – Lucid Culture debuts as the online version of a somewhat notorious New York music and politics e-zine. After a brief flirtation with blogging about global politics, we begin covering the dark fringes of the New York rock scene that the indie rock blogosphere and the corporate media find too frightening, too smart or too unfashionable. “Great music that’s not trendy” becomes our mantra.

2008-2009 – jazz, classical and world music become an integral part of coverage here. Our 666 Best Songs of All Time list becomes a hit, as do our year-end lists for best songs, best albums and best New York area concerts.

2011 – one of Lucid Culture’s founding members creates New York Music Daily, a blog dedicated primarily to rock music coverage from a transgressive, oldschool New York point of view, with Lucid Culture continuing to cover music that’s typically more lucid and cultured.

2012-13 – Lucid Culture eases into its current role as New York Music Daily’s jazz and classical annex.